Video: Mariners general manager Jack Zduriencik discusses trades

The stadium music got loud and I turned off the video recorder right when Jack Zduriencik got really animated. Here’s the rest of his quotes

On people asking for top guys like Paxton, Walker and Peterson

“You can go back six years ago to when a lot of people should trade Felix Hernandez, you guys are nuts for holding on to Felix Hernandez and you could get a bundle for Felix Hernandez, and we didn’t do it,” Zduriencik said. “We re-signed him and then we re-signed him again. It’s the best move we’ve ever made.

I think in the particular case of a Paxton or a Walker or take any of young kids, Elias, and others as well, DJ Peterson, look we’ve spent a lot of time to get a young team on the field that is producing pretty good,” he said. “They’re not there yet. But to give up to give up pieces that are longterm, that are going to be part of this thing going forward, it just didn’t make sense. I just wasn’t willing to do it. It’s just the way it is. There’s too much into this. Our fans have suffered for too much for 10 years to try to get to get to a point where we are competitive team. We are now. We are going to get better. This group of kids will get better. We are adding to it. We’re not finished. We’ve got Paxton coming back. We’ve got Taijuan eventually and we have a lot of other nice pieces. These additions help us.”

On if the offensive issues added more pressure on him to get a deal done ….

“I never felt pressure. I always felt common sense would prevail. To do a deal becuase you felt pressure is a bad deal. To do a deal because it makes sense is what you set out to do. In all these cases, in every discussion we had, we tried to pull it back.

“There were people out there that really thought the Mariners were prime targets. ‘Hey, they’re in the pennant race for the first time in 10 years, they’re going to give up the farm.’ There was a little bit written about that. We were not going to do it. It probably didn’t make a lot of people happy, but I don’t care. If a few guys get ruffled in the feathers, that’s their fault. This is our property. These are our players. This is our organization. That’s our focus. If we can help each other I’m all in, but we’re not sitting here donating players to make somebody else better. Forget about it.”